


i'm giving you a nightcall (to tell you how i feel)

by manycoloureddays



Series: Prompt Reposts [7]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/M, Gen, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 21:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21380686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays
Summary: Bev wakes violently. Thrown from deep sleep to gasping and sweating in a too-dark room. She struggles against the damp sheets wrapped tight around her ankles where she’s kicked them down running in her dream.She doesn’t dream about strange men dying anymore. The nightmares are just nightmares, not premonitions. But that just means that when she closes her eyes she’s drowning.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, The Losers Club & Beverly Marsh
Series: Prompt Reposts [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1039682
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	i'm giving you a nightcall (to tell you how i feel)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heroic_pants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroic_pants/gifts).

> for the prompt: i called you at 2am because i need you
> 
> title from nightcall by london grammar

Bev wakes violently. Thrown from deep sleep to gasping and sweating in a too-dark room. She struggles against the damp sheets wrapped tight around her ankles where she’s kicked them down running in her dream. 

Finally free, she reaches out and flicks the light on. The hotel room looks scarier in the dark. It’s big, too big for one person, and there’s something about being alone in a huge dark room that is really not doing it for her. There’s an echo, too many sounds not dulled by the presence of another body.

She doesn’t dream about strange men dying anymore. The nightmares are just nightmares, not premonitions. But that just means that when she closes her eyes she’s drowning. There’s blood, in her eyes and her mouth and up her nose and she can't breathe. It just means that the bodies she sees have faces she recognises. She runs and sees Eddie with a knife in his face, Ben’s hand too far away for her to grasp, Stan in the bath, Richie floating, Bill dead like Georgie, Mike dead in the library. Sometimes they’re kids again, sometimes she never left Tom, never went back. Sometimes she wakes in a sweat and can’t remember why. 

At least when she wakes she can check her phone. Remember they all made it out alive.

Her lockscreen is a photo of the seven of them. Patricia took it when they were all together for New Years. Starting 2017 off right, all of them grinning hugely at the camera.

It still amazes her how easily they’ve fallen back together. For decades Bev didn’t have close friendships, especially once she was married. She didn’t have anyone she could call when it was the middle of the night and she needed an escape, or just an ear. Someone to listen to her breathe and know she was alive.

Now there are choices. She has middle-of-the-night-phone-call _ options _. It makes her giddy. 

Stan and Eddie are good for serious conversations. Mike will happily distract her with stories about his travels, let her convince him to come visit her and Ben even if they’re wildly out of his way. She’ll call Bill if the nightmare requires unpacking; their conversations swinging from things they should probably discuss with their therapists to giggles over whatever dream theory website they’ve stumbled across. Richie texts her when he’s up at stupid hours in case she’s up too and wants to talk about it. She often returns the favour. He finds it easier to talk about the nightmares in the dark, and she finds it easier to talk to someone willing to make light of it. 

Tonight though she hasn’t woken up curled around Ben. It’s so easy when she can press a kiss to his shoulder and then sneak down the hall to talk shit with Richie. But tonight Ben's on the other side of the country.

Bev presses her hand to her chest. She can feel her heart still racing beneath Ben’s old t-shirt. It’s not the only thing she stole to bring with her to New York this week. She has another t-shirt and a hoodie in her case. 

The first time they’d been away from each other post Derry neither of them had been able to sleep, so now it’s just habit. When she was packing her carry on, Ben threw her his biggest, oldest sleep shirt and she’s worn it the past two nights. She pulls the material up to her nose and breathes in, smells home. 

She checks the clock. It’s nearly 2am. She has a meeting at nine, and if she keeps lying here like this she’s never going to get back to sleep. Steadying herself with another round of deep breathing, she gets up and heads to the bathroom. 

She showers quickly, drinks two glasses of water and splashes some on her face, before heading back to the bed. The covers are bunched up at the foot of the mattress. There’s a Bev shaped sweat patch on the right hand side. She can’t deal with that right now.

Instead, she climbs into the other side. Ben’s side. She rolls her eyes at herself. This isn’t a difficult thing to do.

She calls Ben. 

He answers almost immediately.

‘Bev?’ 

The warmth in his voice is exactly what the hotel room is missing. They spoke just before she went to bed, she shouldn’t already miss it, but when she hears it Bev closes her eyes and lets the last of her nightmare melt away. 

‘Hey. Sorry, I know it’s late.’

He makes a soft noise. ‘Not as late as it is there.’ She listens to him breathe. Matches her breaths to his. ‘Nightmare?’

‘Yeah.’ She settles down against the pillows. 

‘Wanna talk about it?’ 

She can hear nighttime noises, can picture Ben at the backdoor letting the dog out. She can picture the rest of his nightly routine too. He’ll get a glass of water for beside the bed that he won’t touch all night. He’ll clean his teeth and, because she’s not there to make stupid faces at, he might even manage not to dribble toothpaste down his chin. 

‘Not really. Just wanted to hear your voice.’

She knows the exact smile on his face right now. Can hear it when he chuckles and says, ‘I’m more than happy to oblige.’

He tells her about his day. Talks her through the run he went on, the book he’s been reading, the article Mike sent him, the new recipe he tried for dinner, he’ll make it for her when she gets back. She falls asleep when he’s talking about what he’ll do before picking her up at the airport tomorrow night. 

She doesn’t remember what she dreams about when she wakes up in the morning, but she knows they were good ones. 

There’s a message on her phone, left at 2.45am. _ I miss you too. Even the snoring I can hear down the phone right now. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Love you _ _ ❤️ _

Bev hugs her knees to her chest, grinning. She’s going to marry him one of these days, and honestly, she cannot wait. 


End file.
